Bona Sforza d'Aragona was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Sigismund the Old, and Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right.
23 Facts About Bona Sforza
2.
Bona Sforza was a surviving member of the powerful House of Sforza, which had ruled the Duchy of Milan since 1447.
3.
Bona Sforza's descendants became beneficiaries of the Neapolitan sums, a loan to Philip II of Spain that was never completely paid.
4.
Together with other relatives, Bona Sforza was temporarily hid at the Aragonese Castle on Ischia.
5.
Bona Sforza's teachers included Italian humanists Crisostomo Colonna and Antonio de Ferraris, who taught her mathematics, natural science, geography, history, law, Latin, classical literature, theology, and how to play several musical instruments.
6.
The initial and most likely plan to marry Maximilian Bona Sforza failed after he was deposed after the French victory in the Battle of Marignano in 1515.
7.
Bona Sforza's dowry was very large: 100,000 ducats, personal items worth 50,000 ducats and the Duchy of Bari.
8.
Bona Sforza wore a dress of light blue Venetian satin that reportedly cost 7,000 ducats.
9.
Bona Sforza became openly involved in various state affairs, which did not agree with the traditional ideal of a royal wife to use discreet manipulation in government.
10.
Bona Sforza helped to reform agriculture taxation, including uniform duties on the peasants and area measurements.
11.
In 1539, Bona Sforza reluctantly presided over the burning of the 80-year-old Katarzyna Weiglowa for heresy, but that event ushered in an era of tolerance.
12.
Bona Sforza was instrumental in establishing alliances for Poland, but she was rumored to be a notorious conspirator because of her gender and Italian heritage.
13.
Bona Sforza was instrumental in establishing an alliance between Poland and France with the objective of recovering Milan.
14.
Bona Sforza advocated attaching Silesia to the Polish crown in return for her hereditary principalities of Bari and Rossano, but Sigismund the Old did not fully support this idea.
15.
Alongside her husband's profound interest in the revival of classical antiquity, Bona Sforza was instrumental in developing the Polish Renaissance.
16.
Bona Sforza brought renowned Italian artists, architects and sculptors from her native country.
17.
Bona Sforza's most known artistic involvement were the expansion of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius and the construction of Ujazdow Castle, which included a large park and a menagerie.
18.
Still, their relationship turned difficult, and after her husband's death, Bona Sforza moved with her unmarried daughters to Masovia and stayed there for eight years before moving back to Bari.
19.
Bona Sforza was visited by envoys of King Philip II of Spain, who attempted convince her to give up the duchies of Bari and Rossano in favour of the Habsburg Spain.
20.
Bona Sforza was buried in St Nicholas' Basilica in Bari, where her daughter, Anna, had a tomb made in the current Renaissance style for her remains.
21.
Bona Sforza was considered from her youth a very ugly woman, so much so that the proposal of a marriage between her and the fourteen-year-old Federico Gonzaga was not even taken into consideration by her mother Isabella d'Este, nor by the archdeacon Alessandro di Gabbioneta, who considered it a sin to sacrifice the flourishing beauty of the young Federico to a "mature and ugly" woman like Bona Sforza.
22.
Bona Sforza was the eldest son of Alessandro Pignatelli, who, in turn, was the lover of her mother Isabella d'Aragona, Duchess of Milan.
23.
Widowed by her husband in 1548, Bona Sforza became involved in a romantic affair with Giovanni Lorenzo Pappacoda.